The personal blog of Victoria Linchong, a repository of peculiar perspectives and rather unpopular ideas derived from the molotov cocktail of being Asian-American (whatever that is), female, and a starving theater/film artist from the mean streets of New York, back when there really were mean streets

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Celebrating Silvester, Whoever He Was

I've been writing for Berlin Loves You and they asked me to write up an alternative guide to New Years Eve. I started with an introduction to why New Years is called "Silvester" in Berlin, but it was too long for the article. I cut it down but in the final article, it got cut even more. I thought maybe some people would be interested in the full expanded trivia, so here it is, expanded even more with annotations and everything. The Berlin Loves you article can be found here in case you're curious about the cut or looking for last minute non-techno things to do in Berlin for New Years.

In America, Sylvester is a tuxedo cat with a bad lisp. Sylvester is an Eye-talian knucklehead who made a couple of boxing films. But in Berlin, Silvester is what the locals say when they mean New Years Eve. So who the heck is this Silvester guy? I finally looked it up and it turns out that he was the pope who
converted the Roman emperor Constantine to Christianity.

If you google this Pope Silvester guy, you'll immediately turn up rumors that he and Constantine were both rampantly anti-Semitic but that’s just hearsay. There's plenty of evidence of anti-Semitism in the middle ages so I have no idea why an alt-right website feels the need to make this up. Maybe the writer is a sourpuss who wants to pour cold water over New Year celebrations? (I went on a google dive and apparently there are conflicts in Israel over Rosh Hashanah vs. everyone else's New Year.) You'll also find a source that says Silvester was black and a few other sources about him slaying a dragon. So if you believe everything that's on the internet, Silvester was the first black man to slay a dragon and became pope. That's a way better rumor to spread around and I'm very happy to help you do that. But sadly, it doesn't serve anyone's agenda, so I doubt if it will gain much traction.

The truth is that no one knows anything about Sylvester except that he was too sick to attend the Nicean Council and he happened to
die on December 31. That was right in the middle of a 12-day pagan festival
to banish evil spirits called the Rauhnächte. Germanic tribes throughout Central Europe believed that during
those “Rough Nights,” the sun slowed down to a crawl while Wotan led a band of
bellicose ghosts on a wild hunt through the dark skies. In response, the
Teutons filled their houses with smoke, banged kitchen utensils, beat on trees with
flaming cudgels, and rolled burning wooden wheels down mountainsides. Good times. Naturally, sourpuss early Christians disapproved and they set about convincing pagan
Germans to fête Silvester instead. In the late 1500s, Europeans countries began to move the first day of the calendar to 1
January and the feast day for Silvester gradually turned into
celebrations for a new year.

***
Like in NYC, there are a billion things to do in Berlin tonight. I might lay
low after two days of going out and performing. But everyone keeps telling me
that Warschauer Strasse is like a warzone of fireworks. That sounds amazing to
me after 20 years of fireworks restrictions in NYC. And my dad comes from
Yanshui, a small town in Taiwan whose claim to fame is that it hosts the craziest
fireworks festival in the world. People literally wear full face helmets and hazmat suits.
I've never been to Asia during Lunar New Year and I probably would hate
Yanshui's fireworks, but I am all about down home street celebrations. Maybe I
will go and take some photos of Berliners making a big ruckus for Silvester like it's 330AD.

Running out now to get groceries before all the grocery shops close for two days. Leaving you with this video of Joshua Samuel Brown in Yanshui a few years
back.

About Me

I'm a Taiwanese-American theater and film maker, born and raised in New York City. I also write cultural essays and theater/film reviews for a variety of publications and internet sites including www.nytheatre.com. I've been involved in Obie Award winning productions, produced several plays by the great writer James Purdy and written a screenplay that placed in the finals of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, the Berlin Film Festival Talent Campus AND the Slamdance Screenplay Contest. (Maybe this blog should be called Close but No Banana.) Recent productions include a multimedia performance of PAPER ANGELS by Genny Lim, which performed outdoors in San Francisco and won Best of the San Francisco Fringe. I'm also in post-production for the documentary ALMOST HOME: TAIWAN. I was Development Assistant at Film Forum and Grants Manager at Theatre for a New Audience.